Good Neighbors and Tough Turkey

Helena and Johann Facchini, our neighbors
across the driveway in Chiang Mai - 1983

 Rupert and Dee Nelson, Dick and Marlene Mann, and Ed and Norma Lee Hudspith were the American Baptist Missionaries based in Chiang Mai at the time and they made us feel a welcome part of all that was happening and did a lot to get us oriented. All the American Baptists had at least an interest in the Karen work we were joining. In addition, there was an Australian Baptist family working with the Lahu people group and then our neighbors, the Facchini family, were also based in Chiang Mai representing the Baptist Union of Sweden. There were well attended weekly prayer meetings for our group and periodic social gatherings as well as work oriented contact so it was a fairly close-knit group. In addition, many missionaries would visit for business or pleasure from other locations like Bangkok, Chiang Rai or Sanklaburi. We felt privileged to be a part of a group that was so dedicated to the Lord and the Lord’s work and looked after each other.

There were no “suffering servants” though. It was also a fun group to be around. Arriving in Chiang Mai in mid-October, it was soon time for US Thanksgiving and we and several visitors were invited to Dick and Marlene Mann’s home for Thanksgiving dinner. Dick and Marlene had cooked (chili I believe) for no less than the King of Thailand so being invited to the Mann’s for dinner was a guarantee of a good meal.

A couple days after Thanksgiving, Marcia and I wanted to introduce ourselves to the greater Thailand Baptist Missionary Fellowship (TBMF) community so we had a chicken barbeque. We invited project staff, Lahu and Karen church leaders as well as the Chiang Mai missionaries. Grilled chicken is pretty universal and appreciated by Thai, Karen, Lahu, missionaries and everyone it seems, so we set up a grill, grilled chicken and steamed a lot of rice. Still fairly young and relative newly-weds we’d not done too much hosting of large groups so we cooked way too much food and had a tough time dealing with the left overs. But hopefully, we got ourselves introduced in a positive way.

Of course, we were also making trips out to mountain villages and getting oriented to village style Karen culture, the work of the irrigation project we were joining, mountain driving, etc. On one of our early forays into the mountain areas, we noticed a village that was raising a number of turkeys. At the time, turkeys weren’t available in Chiang Mai. Dick Mann knew of a place that had capons (a neutered rooster that is larger than an average chicken but nothing close to turkey size or flavor) but that was as close to a turkey as we could get.

Our impressive looking Christmas dinner

Knowing that Christmas was coming up, Marcia and I had the brainstorm to buy a live turkey from the
village, keep it awhile to fatten it up, then eat it for Christmas dinner. We must have talked about the plan convincingly enough that in the end, we would up buying 4 turkeys and giving a couple to other missionaries and keeping a couple for ourselves.

Our neighbor across the driveway, Johann Facchini was in on the plan and helped us build a cage to hold the 2 turkeys we kept until we were ready to “invite” them to Christmas dinner.  We fed the turkeys as much as they would eat and they were eager to please. One of the turkeys was a male and he obligingly “gobbled” more or less constantly until we were so used to it, we didn’t hear it anymore. He would also puff out his feathers convincing us he was huge and going to provide hefty portions of delectable meat.

Finally, on Christmas eve, we killed the big male turkey, quieting his gobble and plucking his multitude of feathers. Unfortunately, this turkey was 99% feathers and 1% meat. Now-a-days, I suppose we would say this was a “free range” turkey as he was never caged, but always free to wander a wide range. In fact, I doubt he appreciated his freedom as it is likely he had to run daily marathons to stay ahead of the village dogs that chased him all day, every day. The result was a turkey with a very thin, very tough veneer of turkey meat seared on to exceedingly sturdy bones.

Part of the Christmas dinner gathering in 1983.
Including Johann, Helena, Sara Facchini,
Lea Lindero, Rebecca Cutlip, Eva Quist
and more.

Sans feathers, the turkey looked severely malnourished. Undaunted, we had too much invested in this bird so we still cooked it. Somehow, we got behind schedule and being new to turkey cooking anyway, we rushed it and had to cook it too quick. That further dried out the already tough bird but we proudly set it out on the dinner table that Christmas day. We had quite a few dinner guests but it was decidedly tough to detach the meat from the bones. Then, once detached, the meat had the texture of used work boots and it took strong jaws and tough teeth to chew. In my diary though, I did note that it “had good flavor”. Fortunately, the Facchinis supplied some additional meat for the dinner as I’m afraid our turkey was lightly sampled instead of eaten.

As already noted, we had gotten accustomed to hearing the turkey gobble to the point we didn’t even hear it anymore. One morning though, weeks after our “gobbler” had met his holiday demise, we were surprised to hear a turkey gobble from across the driveway. There were certainly no turkeys left in the cage we’d built and we could see no wandering turkeys that had come from somewhere else. We soon concluded the sound was coming from the Facchini’s mina bird cage. Looking closely, sure enough, we could see the mina bird was paying homage to his dearly departed neighbor. The mina did a great turkey call and “gobbled” his heart out for several months after the turkey was gone. Sadly, the mina bird never got a reply.